The present invention relates to network management, and more particularly, this invention relates to network-level discovery of devices.
Many different conditions may cause a system to search for devices on a network. When performing a network-level discovery in a heterogeneous environment, it is often difficult to determine whether a discovered device should be represented using a generic model or a more specialized model. In many cases, with conventional discovery techniques, there is not a well-known or finite list of properties available at discovery time that can be used to determine whether a device is generic or not.
With conventional solutions, a generic object was only created once all other possible discovery options were exhausted. This sort of algorithm forces an application into a linear discovery model that has several limitations. First, it greatly increases the length of time between when the device is initially discovered and when the application object is actually created. Second, this sort of algorithm limits or excludes the ability to use multiple models to represent a particular device and does not allow a generic model to be created in addition to a specialized model, under certain conditions. Third, this sort of algorithm forces a single threaded discovery and does not allow distributing object discovery onto multiple servers.
A secondary problem associated with linear discovery techniques occurs when the well-known set of properties for a particular piece of hardware changes due to the emergence of new hardware or new software. Therefore, a solution that addresses the shortcomings of the linear discovery technique and also provides an easy way to update this set of properties in response to new technology would be highly advantageous.